On my old machine (back on Lucid!) I used XAMPP for local dev work. XAMPP installed everything for you, including setting up FTP to your localhost (/var/www) directory, since permissions don't allow you to write directly to it.

I have a new machine running Precise, and decided to do things the grown-up way. I installed everything using tasksel, and got apache, php, mysql, and phpmyadmin up and running. But it's kind of a pain to have to create and edit all my files via gksudo gedit on the command line, and sooner or later I'm going to have to upload images.

How can I set up FTP so that I can "upload" files to my localhost server?

Edit to add

Followed the first video, but when I got to the point where he was creating files (around 7:25 in), I get hung up. Here's what my terminal looks like when I try to get into the /srv directory (which I verified does exist in Nautilus):

Thanks for the links. I followed the process to the letter, but got hung up around 7:26 in the first video - where he goes into the /srv folder to create files for testing. When I try that, it asks me for a password, which I obviously don't have since we haven't gotten to the point of creating accounts yet. (And yes, I did enable anonymous access in the .conf file.) Any idea why that's happening or how to get past it?
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EmmySJul 12 '12 at 0:27

That one I'm not to sure about. I just know that the video worked for me. Sorry. :/
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EnigmaticOct 1 '12 at 16:33

Your working folder should be the one to serve into. Tip: checkout on github there are more demos with other/no authorization handlers. Performance wise this python based server is not that bad if compared to vsftpd